Land Board yet to consider parks option for Christmas Mountains

Published 7:00 pm, Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Conservationists are frustrated that a proposal to put the Christmas Mountains in the National Park Service has stalled without a vote from the state board in charge of the property.

State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, chairman of the School Land Board, has so far declined to bring up for board consideration a park service proposal to add the property to Big Bend National Park.

Patterson said in early February, after the board rejected to two private bids for the property, any consideration of the National Park Service plan could be many months away.

The three-member board has met three times since the federal agency made its proposal Jan. 31, and another meeting is scheduled for March 18. The park service's proposed management plan for the Christmas Mountains has not been put on any of the meeting agendas.

"To prevent the proposal from at least being considered, I think that's outrageous," Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "It's a failure of government for him to not to even allow the case from being made to the full land board."

Patterson, however, has said he would pursue alternatives, including getting the land into other federal agencies.

A fierce gun-rights advocate, Patterson wants a federal agency that will allow hunting, which is generally prohibited on National Park Service lands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the U.S. Forest Service could work, he said. Patterson also has not ruled out selling the land to a private bidder.

Patterson spokesman Jim Suydam told The Associated Press the commissioner is following the course he laid out last month.

"Commissioner Patterson still thinks the Christmas Mountains should be in the hands of an entity, public or private, that can provide the best stewardship and the best public access," Suydam said.

The property in question is about 9,200 acres of rugged wilderness, with a mile-long border with Big Bend. It was donated to Texas by the Virginia-based Conservation Fund in 1991. The land was given to Texas with the understanding that the National Park Service of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department would take over if the state lost interest in the property.